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Combat Examples/Melee Overkill
Merlin has been eyeing a nearby for some time now. It is guarded by a , one of the most powerful creatures in the game. After a few dozen turns of preparation, he finally feels ready to take it on. He has one unit of Berserkers (thanks to and his ongoing spell) wielding weaponry, and boasting all of the Unit Enchantments he could muster. These are: , , , , , , and ; in addition to the already mentioned . He also takes along one unit of fresh Barbarian Spearmen from a nearby Town, who only benefit from the (and are thus ), but should be of strategic importance. :The dragon is surrounded by a host of , but Merlin knows they will be of little significance if he manages to slay mighty beast. Paying no mind to its "followers", the quickly closes the distance between the two armies to only a single tile. Merlin prepares his tactical play, and moves his Spearmen right in front of it, while retreating a square with the Berserkers. This is so that even if the dragon decides to go after the stronger unit, it would only be able to attack it once at most, before exhausting its Movement Allowance. But fortune smiles on Merlin this day, as the takes the "bait", and swoops right down on the brave, but suicidal Spearmen. Because it is initiating the Melee Attack, the defenders won't be able to use their . :The dragon, on the other hand, opens the engagement with its Lightning Breath. The strength of this attack is normally , but it is increased to due to the strong presence of the . It also fully benefits from the 's . The Attack Roll yields an overwhelming 16 successes. In addition, this ability also deals Armor Piercing Damage! The poor Spearmen's is cut in half while resolving it. Not that they had much to begin with though, their original simply becomes now. :The first Defense Roll is a failure, which is more or less expected, since it only uses a single die with the base success chance. This means all "raw" Damage Points are still intact. However, the unit only has per , and thus can only record this much before a new Defense Roll must be made. As a result, another roll now follows against , while is logged for delivery. This roll is also too high to succeed, allowing the attack to record another . :The third roll succeeds however, reducing the remaining to , before adding to the waiting to be delivered. The next five Defense Rolls after this are again failures. By this point, the total recorded for delivery is , while one point was blocked, and are still waiting to be processed. Technically, all of the Spearmen should now be dead. Despite this though, resolution continues just like before, as if nothing happened. The same would also be true if those points of "raw" originated from 2, 4, or 8 individual, separate attacks, such as two units of Spearmen fighting each other. The next Defense Roll succeeds, and so does one more down the line. Thus, overall, points get blocked, while are ultimately delivered. :At the end of the short-range attack phase, this is dealt, and the Spearmen are slain, with no left standing. However, the unit is not removed from the field just yet. This is because units can not be truly destroyed during a Melee Sequence, only at the very end of it. True, they can no longer fight back, but they can, and do, still take . In this case, from the 's somewhat less powerful . :While the strength of this attack is the same ( with ), it is not Armor Piercing. That is, the Spearmen can use their full against it, ignoring for a moment that they are all slain already. The dragon also gets only 11 successes this time. Just like before though, for every recorded, a new Defense Roll can take place. The first one is a complete failure ( dealt, remains), while the next two score a single success each ( dealt, remains). Then comes another failure ( dealt, remains), with the next roll blocking both points that it can ( dealt, remains). Even though this is followed by another two sets with zero successes ( dealt, remains); if this was the only attack, the unit would actually have survived despite their very low . Granted, their single remaining would not have been very useful on the battlefield, but the unit may have lived to tell the tale, and gain some . :That's not what happened though, as the total ultimately delivered does destroy the Spearmen at the end of the Melee Sequence. Having electrocuted the first opponent, the then closes in on the Berserkers, just as Merlin had hoped. It is now within range, with no moves left for an attack. This gives the Berserkers a significant advantage, since they can initiate the combat themselves, enabling them to use their Thrown ability, while avoiding the dragon's . To help them further, Merlin attempts to cast a spell, but unfortunately it is countered by the Node's Dispelling Aura, and fizzles (it had a 100% × / ( + ) = 37.5% chance of getting through). :Berserkers have , and a base Attack Strength of . However, these particular ones benefit from ( ), equipment ( ), and ( ), so their total is actually . The universal they gain from being also applies, but as this example is based on the official 1.31 game version, the other that they should get (from and ), do not. With 6 Attack Rolls though, they still manage 5, 3, 5, 1, 6, and 3 successes. The defends against these individually, with a score of + = , thanks to the power of the . It gets 3, 4, 4, 2, 6, and 3 successes, negating four of the attacks entirely, but taking + = nonetheless. :Mutual can now commence, and the Barbarians continue with another 6 Attack Rolls. Their is 4 points higher than their (base with the same enhancements, for an total), and this time, every bonus they have also applies, which brings them to a success chance of per die. With this, they get 8, 7, 7, 4, 10, and 9 hits. The dragon's is the same, and its Defense Rolls generate 4, 3, 4, 2, 7, and 2 successes. None of the attacks are blocked completely, and the sums up to + + + + + = , slightly more than what was needed to bring the creature down (it has , but it also took from the ). :Before that can happen though, it also gets a chance to strike back at its red-haired assailants. Its mighty attack scores a lucky 16 successes. Berserkers normally have a base of , but again, this unit is Normal only in name. It gets from , from armor, and total from protective enchantments (the conditional ones do not apply). This yields altogether, and they get 3 blocks on the first Defense Roll, bringing the "raw" down to . They also have per thanks to their level, which means are now recorded, and a new Defense Roll is made against the remaining . :This time, only 2 dice succeed, so another are logged against the Berserkers, while "raw" hits carry over for a third roll. Now there are again 3 successes however, so those remaining points are avoided entirely. This brings the total to a final value of only , exactly half of the original . Even though only 2 were actually hit, the was reduced by 3 Defense Roll's worth, normalizing the outcome despite the above average Attack Roll (which would have been 13 successes). This demonstrates the tendency for to limit to whole multiples of the target's per value. The higher the , the more likely this outcome becomes against attacks with the potency to kill multiple . In fact, out of all possible values between and in this particular example, taking exactly was by far the most probable result, with around 40% chance of happening, despite the amount of randomness involved. :And with this, is over, the dragon is slain, and the Berserkers still have left. Three rounds of stalling later, Merlin manages to successfully cast a spell, restoring both lost Berserker . The are easily dispatched afterwards. Even though a few of them do not fall to the , ensures that the stragglers can't do any serious harm with their Illusion attacks. They manage to inflict only overall, and the Berserkers end the encounter with total, and remaining. :The astute reader will probably notice that two enchantments were precast, but did not come into play. They were used in case Merlin's ruse failed, and the Berserkers were attacked first by the dragon. Although the is a creature, its is actually -aligned. This means that the conditional protections offered by both and trigger against it. This would have provided an overall even against this Armor Piercing attack, by using just two Common Spells.